A small moment of Gender Piracy

[quiregrrl]

Near my new office there are two toilets, they are immediately next to each other and they are identical, each being a small room with a toilet, a basin, a mirror, and a door that locks. For the first three weeks, they were non-gendered, but apparently someone complained that you couldn't tell which was the men's and which the women's, so last Friday morning along came maintenance to stick up pictograph signs assigning a binary gender to each toilet.

*eyeroll*

As I was leaving on Friday evening, I visited the loo and as one was occupied I used the other. As I exited the loo, the person using the other one also exited and on seeing me emerging from the door beside her exclaimed "Oh! didn't you see the signs?!? that's the mens!". I stepped back, looked at the signs, looked at her, looked down at myself and replied "No, well, that one is wearing pants, and that one looks like it's wearing a dress, and I'm wearing pants, and you're wearing a skirt, so it seems about right to me". She gave me the half-sideways look, and said "well I guess that's one way to look at it"... I pointed out that they're identical, and everyone has managed to share without any problems for three weeks, so gendering the toilets now just seems arbitrary and silly to me. She replied with a half-smile and "spose so" and i smiled and wished her a happy weekend.

I don't get many chances to challenge the gender binary, so it makes me kind of happy when i do, even when it's tiny and pointless...

Comments

[cubboy.livejournal.com]

same as in my work, same little rooms, same equipment in each but one has pink tiles, other has blue and the signs, of course.

The men would be yelled at by the women if the wrong one was used, as men are perceived to be messy and smelly. I think if you asked most women at your workplace they would prefer not to share for hygene reasons.


I am guessing this means there are less loos now for women than men....

[quiregrrl.livejournal.com]

do they have seperate toilets at home? the hygiene argument is a stupid one that harkens back to kindergarten and the fear of "boy germs" ...

gender anxiety

[razorsharpblade.livejournal.com]

I find it interesting that most shared toilets are often cleaner than men only toilets. I'd agree from a survey across gendered toilets that men appear to be more careless in men only toilets, and I continue to be grossed out by some of the things I come across ... that I *never* see in "mixed" toilets.

I think there's also a fear about sexual overtones and the thought of toilets as quasi private space. Then there's the beat/tearoom thing. Some of it may be a smell thing. There certainly is a distinct difference in urine aroma between testosterone-enhanced persons and oestragen-enhanced persons. Just as there's dumb men out there who would complain about menstrual product disposal bins 'smelling' ... Again, not a problem I've ever encountered in adequately maintained mixed toilets.

I suspect when people cite 'hygeine' they actually mean 'comfort'

Re: gender anxiety

[quiregrrl.livejournal.com]

It's interesting, back in the days when I worked as a cleaner in a community centre, while the men's toilets often smelt bad (which I attribute to urinals), it was routinely the women's toilets that i found the grossest things in.

I understand the fear of sexual overtones, well, i don't really, but I understand that people have that fear, and I can make allowances for that in shared facilities, but these are individual, completely self-enclosed, completely seperate bathrooms. So regardless of who else uses it, when you're in there you have complete privacy... which is why I think assigning genders to them is arbitrary.

[doctornurse.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we have gender-free toilets in our office. Someone suggested that it might be 'yukky' to share with the guys, to which I replied that I do it at home everyday.

Having worked on uni campuses for a while, it's the student toilets you have to be scared of!

[quiregrrl.livejournal.com]

See that's my point, everyone who has access to these toilets, apart from me, shares a toilet at home with someone of the opposite gender, and there are only 11 people total who are located in this area. It's not a big deal.

Student toilets = patient toilets here, especially given that 95% of the clients who attend here have mental health issues, and/or drug/alcohol issues, and/or homelessness...

[doctornurse.livejournal.com]

Yes, and we have only about 12 staff on any given day and 3 separate bathrooms (self-enclosed, like yours are). Zero cause for angst!

[debbieann.livejournal.com]

I think it is great that you had that conversation.